Behind the Development of Max Payne 3

Rockstar are always meticulous when it comes to detail in their games. Be it the environments in LA Noire, the interaction with pedestrians in GTA or the movement of a horse in Red Dead Redemption, they are always on point when it comes to the little things. Rockstar’s next big game coming out is of course Max Payne 3 and researchers at the company have been working really hard to create the authentic feel of São Paulo, Brazil.

Since the end of the second game, Max has found himself in Brazil to escape the corruption of his former life and takes up a new job as a security guard for a wealthy family. And, over the next few weeks and months Rockstar have announced they will be telling everyone how they gathered information to make Max’s new found life as real as it possibly could be.

Rockstar’s research team has been working non-stop to get certain things like weaponry, the police force and environments as accurate as they can. The Unidade de Forças Especiais (UFE) are a fictional special forces police unit that control crime in Max Payne 3 and Rockstar took ideas from some real life units like, GATE (Grupo de Ações Táticas Especiais, or Special Actions and Tactics), GARRA (Grupo Armado de Repressão a Roubos e Assaltos, or Robbery and Assault Repression) and GOE(Grupamento de Operações Especiais, or Special Operations Group) teams in the real São Paulo, whilst also looking at documentaries like, Favela Rising and Bus 174. A lot of resources were used to obtain info on these real life cops like their uniforms, weaponry and equipment.

In many Rockstar games, gangs are predominantly featured and in São Paulo, it’s the favelas that one would fear. “With access facilitated to some of the most powerful assault rifles dirty money can buy, the favela gangs boast intimidating firepower to wage war against rival drug gangs, special police forces, or anyone else brave or foolhardy enough to provoke them”.

Many of the development and design team made countless trips to the city to capture the essense of the area. They were eager to have the upper class areas like, Avenida Morumbi, Avenida Paulista and the Jardins district pinpoint in their appearence. As they were just as keen to capture the places with high crime rights such as, Favela Japiaçu (Favela do Nove) and Edificio São Vito (aka Treme Treme or the Vertical Favela). They took pictures of all the locales and spoke with copious amounts of people there to get a background on Max Payne’s new home. Check out the images below of what Max Payne 3 will look like, along with the real life inspiration behind each screenshot.

Rockstar have ensured us that there is plenty more info on the development of the game, leading up to its release. These insights are always a good thing as they give us a bit more insight into how the studio came to the stage that most of us only see – the finished product.

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Max Payne 3 is due for release in March 2012 on PC, Xbox 360 & PlayStation 3.